You probably recognize the dandy in the
deerstalker above. He graced the front page of The Brettish Empire practically
from the very beginning.

I originally found him on a clip art website
many years ago. I'd been searching for just the right graphic to illustrate TBE's
intro page. After looking all over the 'net, I finally spied this jaunty
caricature. I thought it resembled Jeremy Brett--just perfect for TBE.
There was no artist or background info included with the drawing, and it was
from a "public domain" site affiliated with a university, so I simply
assumed it was an anonymous, generic cartoon.

Imagine my surprise when, early in 2005, I
received an e-mail from an artist named Rich Pine. Rich explained that the
little Sherlock drawing was actually his creation, and that its resemblance to
Jeremy Brett was more than just in the eye of the beholder:

"The
Holmes drawing was one of several that I did about 11 or 12 years ago when I was
working in advertising. It was heavily influenced by Mr. Brett, but I was not
attempting an exact likeness as I did not have the rights to use his image for
commercial purposes...[JB] is by far my favorite Holmes, so I guess the fact
that enough of Mr. Brett came through to be recognized by another Brett fan was
inevitable..."

I told Rich how I happened to find the drawing, and assured him that I would add
the proper artist credit to it on TBE. (Neither one of us could figure
out how the drawing came to be posted on a clip art site.)

Then, Rich kindly offered to create a brand
new drawing for TBE. His new work now appears on TBE's front
page. As you can see, he's managed to capture the essence of JB's Holmes
with a few skillful strokes--thank you, Rich!